Re-examine post-soviet media theory: double matrix vs replacement of matrix

Ilya KiriyaPh.D. philologyPh.D. information and communicationNational Research University – Higher School of Economics Moscow, Russia

1. No transition

This paper tries to propose another framework to analyse current communication model in Russia instead the transitional one.

Communication model has been formed long before soviet period. Soviet period has been a logic continuation of pre-soviet society.

Soviet social factors has been represented by post-soviet researchers as a crucial “factor of change” influenced media:

– No market (Has pre-soviet economics been market-oriented?)– Paternalistic role of State (Is it really peculiarity of soviet period?)– Propagandistic function of media (Has it really been ignored in Tsarist Russia?)

Globalization and modernization in 1990 has been represented as a logic return to pre-soviet communication model and at the same time to occidental model of communication followed democratization.

In reality Russia can’t destroy this “soviet factors” because they are grounded to the social reality during centuries and represent a kind of non-formal institutions structuring social reality (North).

Imported Locally grounded

2. Two set of factors

Commercialization (growing advertising market)

Foreign ownership (limited) News journalism tradition Demand on western cultural

products

Big intrusion of the State into social life (Levada) which increase the pressure on media

– Content and news (Koltsova)– Industrial structure

(Mieckewicz) Tradition of accessibility for

cultural products (Kiriya) Narrow character of public

sphere

mergementmerging

3. State intrusion

The modernizing and civilisational role of state. State initiative (the printing revolution has been initiated by the state to

increase the orthodoxy in new attached regions – and in 10 years the state will banish from the country previously invited first printers). Before XVIII annual production – about 1-2 titles per year (in Europe about 2000) [Tarakanova; Barbier and Bertho Lavenir]. The same logic of invitation of printers by the tsar and then their punishment has been demonstrated by father of Peter the Grate Alexey. Same logic in infrastructure (telephone, railways, telegraph)

To maintain the possibility of intrusion actually the state should act in many ways:

– In field of content to ensure state reforms promotion– In field of ownership of media to ensure the control of content– In field of financing media to resolve conflict between commercial and state

interests.

4. Propaganda vs news journalism culture

Big pressure on news editors and maintaining the system of self-censorship (Koltsova)

Direct agenda setting (special departments within newsrooms responsible for “presidential” and “prime-minister” activity’s coverage).

State support for creating propagandistic fiction content.

Interaction between classic news journalism culture (imported recently) and grounded form of paternalistic one.

5. Limited ownership vs foreign capital

Total average daily share 21,8%

Directly owned Indirectly or partly owned

Total average daily share 39,5%

6. Limited ownership

30% of Ren-TV channel (about 4,6% daily share)

39% of CTC-Media (channels CTC-Media, Domashny and DTV – total daily share – 13,1%)

TV

Among 10 biggest publishers

Limited order access: the State doesn’t allow the presence of natural competition in the most ideological area

Press

7. Limited ownership

The State ensured the “limited access order” to political reasons in mid 1990-s to ensure president Yeltsin’s re-election (Zassursky).

Classic system used to transfer the state property into oligarch’s property for their loyalty exchange.

8. State financing vs commercial

Combining and recombining models. According to McChesney, news journalism culture

and commercialization of media are different sides of the same coin.

State owned channels are biggest players on advertising market. They receive at the same time subventions from the State (in structure of VGTRK revenues it’s about 50%).

State use mechanisms of distribution of grants for coverage of different events and kinds of topics. This parallel market represents in some regions, according to our survey (Kachkaeva, Kiriya), bigger than advertising parallel market.

9. Accessibility tradition

Propaganda should be accessible to ensure the social pressure (soviet tradition).

Actually it leads to the tolerance of different kinds of piracy and to social pressures on the state which should maintain such accessibility (advertising financed model is a better solution to ensure accessibility).

Example of sport (after Putin’s reaction to the sell of broadcasting rights to pay channel, contract has been reexamined in favor of free broadcaster).

10. Mutation of public sphere

Absence of “public sphere” in its Habermassian sense before soviet period. Reasons:

– No wide audience (62% of illiterates in 1914) [Mironov, 2000]– Passivity of audience as a result of absence of political rights because about

90% of active population in XIX century represented serfs (Fedorov, 1966). No labour mobility. No particular need in information.

– Passivity of landlords for whom their lands distributed as privileges for the state service. Lands did not represented economical value.

– Narrow dialogue in the press by very limited class of intellectuals from literature. That’s because history of Russian journalism of XIX century is at the same time history of Russian literature.

Narrow or parallel public sphere (where some deprived from political rights narrow groups of people (dissidents) are discussing political issues (Mattelart).

Informational ghettos – limited access media with very narrow audience which ensure the social isolation of opposition.

Internet social networks playing the same role.

Conclusion

News culture Propaganda culture Open access to capital Restricted

access to capital Commercial financing State financing Accessibility Profitability Public sphere Public isolation